


What We Are

by rosabelle



Category: Power Rangers in Space
Genre: Gen, Home, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 02:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosabelle/pseuds/rosabelle
Summary: Karone doesn't remember the other KO-35, the one that Andros talks about. She only remembers the one that bears the scars she carved into it.





	What We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



Karone doesn't remember the other KO-35, the one that Andros talks about so wistfully. She tries, when he speaks, to picture it, this world that no longer exists, the world where they spent their brief happy childhood with parents who loved them. She only remembers this KO-35, the one that bears the scars she carved into it.

"It's okay," Andros says, every time he brings her to a park, a house, a shop that stirs no recollection in her. "You might not remember right away."

"I might never remember." She's not sure she wants to remember.

She doesn't tell him about the half-memories, the ones that plagued her when she was Astronema. They're flashes, nothing more, a fuzzy outline of a boy in red and a faceless voice that could be her mother's, if it didn't sound so much like the voice of Andros's ship.

Maybe she's not even Karone. Ecliptor said--but Ecliptor _lied_ \--

Andros is sure. She's not sure that she can trust his sure.

"You'll remember," Andros says, as he always does. "I know you will, eventually."

Karone hums, and stares ahead because it's so much easier than looking at the hope in his eyes. The structure he's brought her to this time is constructed in what she's started thinking of as standard Karovan architecture--tall, flat-roofed, and angular, and so strikingly different from what she's started thinking of as standard Karovan fashion, which is full of bright colors and jeweled eyelids.

She reaches to tuck her hair behind her ears, and thinks about Astronema. Was the blue hair her own personal style, or the manifestation of some subconscious memory of the culture in which she'd been born? Who could say? Did it matter? "What is this place?"

"You wouldn't know it," Andros says slowly. "We didn't move here until later."

Karone freezes. "Then this is…?"

"We lived here." He says it almost like an apology. "After our old building was destroyed in one of Dark Specter's attacks."

An attack that she'd probably led. Karone bites her lip. That's how she knows, more than anything, that she really is Andros's sister. Even at the end, with the planet long abandoned, Dark Specter had her send his forces to finish the destruction of KO-35. He'd wanted her to erase every bit of her own history, and she almost had.

"We don't have to go in."

Karone considers the building in front of them. It looks relatively unscathed, compared to some of the others. "Is it safe?"

Andros shrugs.

_He_ wants to go in, she realizes. "Okay," she relents. "We can go in."

Inside, it is cool, and less quiet than she imagined. Somewhere, a pipe drips. She sees no one, but hears voices echo eerily down the corridors. It seems others had the same idea.

The lifts no longer work, so they take the stairs. Karone thinks of the height of the building, and hopes his (her? their?) family's apartment is on a lower floor.

It is. Two flights of stairs later, Andros veers left and she follows him down a dimly lit corridor.

"This is it." He pauses in front of a door, the same gray as the rest of the hall, and frowns.

"You forgot your key?" Karone ventures finally, and swears he cracks a tiny smile.

"We don't use keys."

Belatedly, she notices the keypad built into the wall. Andros taps it with a fingertip and it seems that they are in luck, because the screen lights up green and beeps as he enters a code. What would he have done if it hadn't, she wonders, kick down the door?

(Probably, she decides, with a certainty that startles her. Perhaps she is coming to know him after all.)

Andros releases a deep breath before he steps inside. Karone follows him, her heart in her throat.

Inside, nothing looks familiar to her. She is half relieved, half disappointed. At least Andos has no expectations that she will know this place.

"Well," Andros says, after a long silence. "This is home."

Home.

Karone looks around, trying to imagine a life here. These buildings must have been built in a hurry, after the war started and there was a sudden need for more housing--and yet… she looks around, at the furniture that is sparse and mismatched but carefully arranged in the center of the room, and she feels…

"This was Mom's favorite seat," Andros says, gingerly rubbing a hand over the arm of a short, squat chair. His fingers come away dark with dust. "She'd sit here every night before bed, just… looking out at the stars."

"What was she like?" Karone asks. She's asked him this before, but her memories from her brief time on the Megaship are hazy.

"She looks like you," he says. "You're a little taller, maybe. Your face is the same, but your hair is more like Dad's."

She can't resist. "And _your_ hair?"

Andros smirks at her, then shrugs.

"Really?"

He shrugs again.

"I remember--" Karone bites her lip, still not sure if she really remembers. "Mom sounds like DECA."

"You _do_ remember." Andros looks more joyful than she's ever seen him. "I knew you would."

"I just wish I could trust it."

Andros frowns at her.

"I don't know what I know," she admits finally. "Dark Specter and Ecliptor told me you'd killed my family and when I thought as hard as I could, I swore I could remember that too. So whatever you think I remember--whatever I want to remember, I can't… I can't trust it."

"Trust me," he says.

"I do," she tells him, still surprised that it's the truth. "I don't know if that's enough. I'm never going to be the girl you remember."

Andros is silent for a long time, then he smiles at her sadly. "I know," he says at last. "You're right. The truth is… I don't remember much, either," Andros confesses. He looks away. In profile, she can see him swallow. "I remember you, but… it was so long ago."

"I know." In that moment, Karone can feel all the lost years between them like a gulf. "I'm sure I wasn't what you expected."

"Yeah, you are." Andros shrugs at her surprise. "Not Astronema, obviously, but everything you are. You're… brave, and good, and--you _are_ ," he insists, when she scoffs.

"I'm not good, Andros. All this--" She waves her hands in the air, gesturing at nothing. "Happened because of me."

"It's not your fault," Andros says, with a conviction Karone cannot fathom deserving. "Darkonda kidnapped you, and Dark Specter brainwashed you. You didn't know what you were doing."

He makes it sound so neat and tidy. His retelling of events absolves her of all responsibility.

"You made a choice," he says. "You left Dark Specter, and you risked your life to go back to the Dark Fortress and try and stop that asteroid."

"I had to try," she says. "It was the least I could do."

"See?"

"It wasn't your fault, either." She doesn't realize how very important it is what she's said, until Andros freezes, eyes widening.

"You're not angry?" He asks it tentatively.

"With you?" Karone shakes her head. On this one point, her mind is clear. "It's like you said. Darkonda kidnapped me."

"I went over it in my head every day until I found you." Andros releases a shaky breath. "I thought, maybe if I'd been faster, if I'd paid more attention…"

Maybe then Darkonda would've taken them both. Maybe he would've taken just Andros. Karone looks around the room again, and tries to imagine herself here in Andros's place. Would she have been the Red Ranger in his place? Maybe, in that other life, she is worthy.

"It's not your fault," she repeats. "I've never thought that. I'm glad you found me."

"Me too." Andros smiles at her. "I can't wait for Mom and Dad to see you."

"Are they…?"

"No word." After a heartbeat's pause, he adds, "Yet."

Karone hesitates. No one's wanted to ask him. "Do you really think they're coming home?"

"I know," he says, after a long pause. "I know the odds. But I knew the odds that I'd find you, and I did."

"You did," she says. Maybe he's right. She wants to believe. "I hope you're right."

"They'll be so happy to see you."

"Even if I don't remember them?"

"They remember you," he says. "And there'll be time for all of us to make new memories."

It's a nice thought. Karone smiles in spite of herself.

"All those places I took you to…" Andros hesitates. "I didn't do it just because I wanted you to remember. Those were places I went to with Mom and Dad, or with Zhane… I wanted to go there with you too."

She understands, then, finally, and nods, wishing that she'd realized it sooner. He hasn't just been dragging her from place to place trying to trigger some buried memories. He's been trying to show her who he is, beneath his often prickly exterior, and the people and places who made him.

"You should show me more," she says.

"Really?"

"It's a big planet," she says. "There's got to be more to see."

"Oh, there is," he says. "Do you feel up for it?"

She gestures for him to lead the way, and walks out of the apartment she never belonged to without looking back. Andros doesn't, either, she notices. Maybe for him too, it's never been home.

Impulsively, she takes his arm. It's less intimate than a hug, but she's seen Ashley and Cassie walk down the halls of the Megaship with their arms linked like this and she knows that the gesture is unmistakably an affectionate one. If Andros is startled, he doesn't show it. He says nothing, but his hand comes up to briefly touch hers and together they walk into the sunlight, side by side.


End file.
